Presidential Activism and Success in Foreign and Defence Policy: A Study of Portugal’s Premier-Presidential Regime

This article investigates presidents’ foreign and defence policy activism under Portugal’s premier-presidential system from 1982 to 2021. First, the article discusses the extant literature on intra-executive conflicts in semi-presidential systems. Then, it provides an overview of Portugal’s experience with semi-presidentialism since 1976 and the powers of the Portuguese president. The third section describes all significant foreign and defence policy presidential interventions from 1982 to 2021 that resulted in disputes with the prime minister. This section estimates presidents’ and prime ministers’ ex-ante preferences over the issues at stake. We verify which preference is closest to the ex-post content of the policy implemented – if it is the president’s, it counts as a presidential win. We identify the formal and informal means by which presidents acted. Informal means are essentially going public tactics. In addition, we inductively pin down the necessary and sufficient conditions under which presidents intervene and succeed. The article’s main findings are two: first, the president’s second term, absence of a strictly unified executive and a majority cabinet are separately necessary but jointly sufficient for presidential interventions to occur; second, formal powers are a necessary but insufficient condition for presidential victory. Finally, we speculate on the policy, institutional, and electoral consequences of presidential activism.